


Send Me a Line (To Everything You Left Behind)

by jill_ian



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, soft, this is really so soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 06:14:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19969360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jill_ian/pseuds/jill_ian
Summary: Steve’s never been to the beach. He asks Billy to paint the picture.





	Send Me a Line (To Everything You Left Behind)

They were out in Steve’s backyard when he let the question slip.

It was a sunny afternoon in mid-July. Steve had the day off, his parents were away on a business trip, and Billy had only been scheduled for a morning shift at the pool. There were still a solid couple hours between now and the time they were supposed to pick up the brats from the arcade.

They were laying in lounge chairs out by Steve’s pool, had taken two and pushed them as close together as they could get them. Billy was on his back, face tilted up towards the sun, sunglasses covering his eyes, and Steve was on his front, folded arms pillowing his chin. They each had a beer at their side, hidden beneath their long discarded shirts to keep them from getting too warm and gross in the sun.

Sweat dripped at Steve’s temple. His hair was damp, sticking almost uncomfortably to the back of his neck. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt a breeze. Even the music they had on, some station Billy had picked before they sat down, felt like it was making him overheat somehow.

Steve flicked his eyes up towards Billy. If he was feeling the heat, he certainly wasn’t showing it, sitting perfectly still and features totally at ease, breathing even and lips parted just slightly.

It was as he watched the sunlight bounce off his golden curls that Steve realized Billy was probably more at home in the Indiana heat than he had ever been at Hawkins. That maybe if Billy closed is his eyes, he could pretend like he was still in California. Maybe he could pretend like he was at the beach.

“What’s the beach like?” The question fell from his lips before he could think any better of it.

Billy let out a soft, “Huh?” Only moving so much as to angle his head in Steve’s direction.

“The beach,” he repeated, turning to rest his cheek on his forearms so that he didn’t have to strain to look at him anymore, kicking his leg out to nudge Billy’s foot with his own. “What’s it like?”

“You’ve never been?”

“No.”

“Your father makes more money than he can shove up his ass and he never took you anywhere nice.” He wasn’t sure if Billy had meant that as a question, but it came out like a statement and Steve, unable to disagree, shrugged his shoulders.

“He’s not really the vacation type.”

“That’s a waste.”

“Big time,” he conceded. “Now answer the question.”

“What question?” Billy asked with the quirk of an eyebrow, obviously still deflecting.

“What’s the beach like?”

“It’s kinda like,” Billy went quiet for a long second, eyes unreadable, hidden behind the dark sunglasses. “You know in the movies? When there’s a beach?”

“Sure,” Steve nodded, curious as to where Billy was taking this. “My dad made me watch _Endless Summer_ when I was like 12.”

He expected some type of elaboration, but Billy just smiled. “There you go.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Don’t be an asshole. You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Well what do you want? I don’t know how to describe it.”

“Do it anyway.”

“I don’t know. The beach is-it-I don’t know,” he repeated. “It’s different.”

“Different how?” Steve pushed.

“Lots of ways.”

“Tell me one.”

“Okay. There’s sand. It’s a bitch,” he started, short. “It gets everywhere no matter how hard you try and sometimes it’s so hot you wish your fucking feet would fall off.”

“Can’t you just put shoes on?”

Billy snorted. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because that makes you look like a loser.”

Steve didn’t really get it and he was fairly sure he never would, so he let it go. “What about the ocean?”

“Couldn’t wear shoes even if it wanted to.” Billy said it without hesitation and Steve couldn’t help but sigh.

“Don’t be an asshole.”

“I think you said that already.”

“And I’ll _keep_ saying it until you’re not an asshole anymore.”

Billy smirked, cocky and proud, saying, “I love it when you sweet talk me,” and Steve hated the way it sent something warm into his stomach. “But the ocean’s-it’s. Cold. Sorta. It’s better than a pool, but it makes you a lot more tired. Like you need to go close your eyes once you get out.”

Steve couldn’t believe he’d actually answered the question and waited for more, but it never came and so he gently hooked his foot over Billy’s ankle. “Keep going.”

“I don’t know,” he said for what Steve thought might be the thousandth time. “The beach is just brighter. And it-I guess it smells different.”

“Like what?”

“Like the water, you know. Like salt. And,” Steve could see the way his eyelashes were fluttering at the rim of his glasses, blinking furiously, “and like something warm. The air’s always warm. Like it’s heavy.”

“It’s warm here.”

“Not the same. Warm here feels like hell. But the beach is-it’s a good warm.”

 _Good warm._ The words rang through Steve’s mind and he wondered if it was possible to ache for something he’d never felt.

“What else?” Steve asked, surprised when Billy turned slightly, dislodging Steve’s leg and reaching out to mindlessly curl a strand of his hair around his finger.

“Windy. It’s windy. Makes you look like shit, but it makes everybody look like shit so you don’t feel stupid about it.” Billy paused for a second and Steve watched the curve of his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard, thinking to himself. “And it can get really goddamn loud when there’s a million kids screaming or seagulls or whatever, but you can always hear the waves breaking. Feel them, too.”

Steve felt his brow knit. “Feel them?”

“Yeah, they uh-they spray. Kinda. It’s nice,” he said, voice low, words slow. “Unless you go at night. Then it’s cold and the spray just makes everything colder. But it’s a good cold.”

Steve blinked slowly. “Like good warm.”

Billy nodded. “Doesn’t make your bones hurt. Helps you sleep.”

Steve remembered the blanket Billy always kept in his trunk. He wondered how long he’d kept it there. When he’d bought it. How many times he needed to use it. How many times he’d shaken the sand off of it.

He had no idea just how quiet he’d gone until Billy tugged gently at his hair with a, “Harrington? You still in there?”

“Yeah, I’m still here.” He pushed the thoughts out of his mind as he brought himself back down to earth, letting a playful smile pull at his lips. “Just wondering when you started taking poetry lessons.”

“Shut your fuckin’ mouth,” Billy said, all bark and absolutely no bite as he untangled his finger from Steve’s hair and reached for the pack of cigarettes and the lighter he had next to his chair.

“Can’t. Y’know, for a second there, you sounded like Scott Fitz-jerkoff or something.”

“F. Scott Fitzgerald,” Billy corrected, not without a laugh, dangling a cigarette from his lips and lighting the end.

“Whatever.” Steve rolled his eyes. “I’m saying it sounds nice.”

Billy took a long drag, producing a thick cloud of smoke around his head when he exhaled. “Like someplace you’d wanna go?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“I’ll take you,” he said, so casually that someone else might have thought he didn’t actually mean it, but Steve saw through that now.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he repeated. “Gotta promise you’ll wear something pretty though.”

Steve’s smile grew despite himself. “I’ll think about it.”

He thought about it. Thought about that new bathing suit he’d been eyeing in the Gap window every time he went on break. Wondered how much overtime he’d have to work to save up for it.

Couldn’t hurt to plan ahead.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah so I guess this soft nonsense is what happens when you're a poor beach baby that can't look at the ocean anymore without thinking of Billy Hargrove. But I wanna write more in-depth stuff for this pair so I really hope you liked this and would be game for that???
> 
> Title comes from "Postcard" by First Aid Kit
> 
> Come find me yelling on tumblr @holdenduckfield


End file.
